Victory Lost at Fountain Theatre
by Jesse Schmitt
The title of the latest Athol Fugard work to hit the United States is “Victory” but all around these three characters lies the stench of failure. The US Premiere is presented by The Fountain Theatre (5060 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles) and is directed by the theatre’s co-artistic director, Stephen Sachs.
When you walk into The Fountain Theatre’s intimate 78 seat house, perhaps the first thing you will notice is how close you are to the stage. This is not unlike any other black box theatre which many of us have been to before; the difference here is the intricate detail that the set designer, director, and technical staff have gone over inside this space; literally throwing us into this world.
The setting seems pedestrian enough; a study and open dining area of a home; but everything, the floor to ceiling bookshelves packed tight with individually selected volumes, the inviting looking cushioned chair in the study, which you know has been sat in many times, the floorboards which extend all the way off the stage so it appears as though it never ends; none of these details were lost on this reviewer. But it wasn’t just the downstage dressings with some curtains haphazardly thrown up in the rear; there were windows, two doors leading to two other rooms, and a zigzagging hallway which takes us to the back. From the moment you walk in, you’re taken back through the looking glass; it was as though the show would begin, “Once upon a time…” and the front page of the storybook would turn. It was impressive indeed.
But there was still something else about this home. It felt empty, deserted, vacated. Lived in and still, not. There was this huge beautiful oak dining room table which had chairs askew as though there had recently been bodies there; but no other signs of life. There was no clutter; no juice glass, no newspaper; the books were all high up on the shelves, but the reading lamps were extinguished and all the pillows on the couch were neatly in place.
We quickly would learn why this was so; the house would not maintain its cool facade for too long.
The lights go dark; crickets begin their serenade on the quiet South African village of Karoo, and the first thing we hear is glass being broken into. Through one of the windows stumble Freddie (Lovensky Jean-Baptiste) and Vicky (Tinashe Kajese) who appear to be little more than two bumbling burglars. They race around the room, ravishing it thoroughly; as they keep whisper-screaming at each other that “they need the money.” Actually it’s Freddie who does most of the destruction and whispering; this is a house that Vicky has led him to and one she claims she’s seen great sums of cash on hand at before. Yet she can do little but light a candle, sit on the table, fend off Freddie’s lame sexual advances, and sing; all of which are much to the dislike of Freddie.
They move to a comfortable pace of pulling out drawers, tearing down books and urinating on them, and sharing stories when suddenly enters Lionel (Morlan Higgins) the aging Caucasian resident of this African nation. He enters from upstage slyly with a pistol in his hand and catches everyone by surprise. Lionel is a measured man but he’s immediately chagrin when he realizes that Vicky is on the floor.
The lights come up and the real story of this play is allowed to begin. This is a tale that many westerners wouldn’t really understand too well (or at least not the crowd the night I was there) Lionel was the employer of Vicky’s mother, as a housekeeper; and even though Vicky’s been filling his head in passing with tales of her bright future, in reality Vicky has been reduced to her petty burglary.
Moreover, Freddie has convinced Vicky that he is gong to find a better life in Capetown; where the living is easy and the money is there for the taking. While Vicky continually tells Freddie that she wants to “find her own road” she appears to be continually clinging to this guy who is not really all that nice to her, yet she can not let go.
Lionel enters and the verbal and physical jousting begins. He starts with the upper hand as he’s got the gun and the moral platitude to scream down from his bully pulpit; however the dynamic quickly shifts leading to a balancing act in the end which offers up deadly results.
Lionel is played with a kind hand and a meandering stoicism but even he is lost without the companionship of his wife. Freddie is played with a wild and hot intensity, reacting with split second judgment which can only lead to a bad end. Vicky is played like a little girl on a see-saw; sometimes she’s up and sometimes she’s down; this conflicted aching is her implosion; merely from her own inertia.
Vicky the child was born around the day Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Verster prison. She was named Vicky not because of the name of the jail but because of the words that rang out from Mandela like a silver bell to her mother, to everyone in Africa, and all around the world on that day: “Victory!” But back in the real world and in the world that is the situation of this play, everyone loses. As Freddie tells Lionel, “You don’t know what it’s like for us…There is no hope here.” No hope for Lionel either as he is an old man who has given up on the life he once enjoyed.
“Victory” is a play about three people; three lost souls; and the cosmic convergence which brought them together in this way. They have all been dealt a bad hand against the stacked deck of life and each are, in their own way, inching toward their own self destruction.
The title of the latest Athol Fugard work to hit the United States is “Victory” but all around these three characters lies the stench of failure. The US Premiere is presented by The Fountain Theatre (5060 Fountain Ave, Los Angeles) and is directed by the theatre’s co-artistic director, Stephen Sachs.
When you walk into The Fountain Theatre’s intimate 78 seat house, perhaps the first thing you will notice is how close you are to the stage. This is not unlike any other black box theatre which many of us have been to before; the difference here is the intricate detail that the set designer, director, and technical staff have gone over inside this space; literally throwing us into this world.
The setting seems pedestrian enough; a study and open dining area of a home; but everything, the floor to ceiling bookshelves packed tight with individually selected volumes, the inviting looking cushioned chair in the study, which you know has been sat in many times, the floorboards which extend all the way off the stage so it appears as though it never ends; none of these details were lost on this reviewer. But it wasn’t just the downstage dressings with some curtains haphazardly thrown up in the rear; there were windows, two doors leading to two other rooms, and a zigzagging hallway which takes us to the back. From the moment you walk in, you’re taken back through the looking glass; it was as though the show would begin, “Once upon a time…” and the front page of the storybook would turn. It was impressive indeed.
But there was still something else about this home. It felt empty, deserted, vacated. Lived in and still, not. There was this huge beautiful oak dining room table which had chairs askew as though there had recently been bodies there; but no other signs of life. There was no clutter; no juice glass, no newspaper; the books were all high up on the shelves, but the reading lamps were extinguished and all the pillows on the couch were neatly in place.
We quickly would learn why this was so; the house would not maintain its cool facade for too long.
The lights go dark; crickets begin their serenade on the quiet South African village of Karoo, and the first thing we hear is glass being broken into. Through one of the windows stumble Freddie (Lovensky Jean-Baptiste) and Vicky (Tinashe Kajese) who appear to be little more than two bumbling burglars. They race around the room, ravishing it thoroughly; as they keep whisper-screaming at each other that “they need the money.” Actually it’s Freddie who does most of the destruction and whispering; this is a house that Vicky has led him to and one she claims she’s seen great sums of cash on hand at before. Yet she can do little but light a candle, sit on the table, fend off Freddie’s lame sexual advances, and sing; all of which are much to the dislike of Freddie.
They move to a comfortable pace of pulling out drawers, tearing down books and urinating on them, and sharing stories when suddenly enters Lionel (Morlan Higgins) the aging Caucasian resident of this African nation. He enters from upstage slyly with a pistol in his hand and catches everyone by surprise. Lionel is a measured man but he’s immediately chagrin when he realizes that Vicky is on the floor.
The lights come up and the real story of this play is allowed to begin. This is a tale that many westerners wouldn’t really understand too well (or at least not the crowd the night I was there) Lionel was the employer of Vicky’s mother, as a housekeeper; and even though Vicky’s been filling his head in passing with tales of her bright future, in reality Vicky has been reduced to her petty burglary.
Moreover, Freddie has convinced Vicky that he is gong to find a better life in Capetown; where the living is easy and the money is there for the taking. While Vicky continually tells Freddie that she wants to “find her own road” she appears to be continually clinging to this guy who is not really all that nice to her, yet she can not let go.
Lionel enters and the verbal and physical jousting begins. He starts with the upper hand as he’s got the gun and the moral platitude to scream down from his bully pulpit; however the dynamic quickly shifts leading to a balancing act in the end which offers up deadly results.
Lionel is played with a kind hand and a meandering stoicism but even he is lost without the companionship of his wife. Freddie is played with a wild and hot intensity, reacting with split second judgment which can only lead to a bad end. Vicky is played like a little girl on a see-saw; sometimes she’s up and sometimes she’s down; this conflicted aching is her implosion; merely from her own inertia.
Vicky the child was born around the day Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Verster prison. She was named Vicky not because of the name of the jail but because of the words that rang out from Mandela like a silver bell to her mother, to everyone in Africa, and all around the world on that day: “Victory!” But back in the real world and in the world that is the situation of this play, everyone loses. As Freddie tells Lionel, “You don’t know what it’s like for us…There is no hope here.” No hope for Lionel either as he is an old man who has given up on the life he once enjoyed.
“Victory” is a play about three people; three lost souls; and the cosmic convergence which brought them together in this way. They have all been dealt a bad hand against the stacked deck of life and each are, in their own way, inching toward their own self destruction.
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